Government officials insisted this did not amount to “a top-down reorganisation” in the mould of former Conservative health secretary Andrew Lansley’s changes, which were so extensive that the NHS’s then-CEO quipped they could be seen from space.

Scrapping NHS England is "the beginning, not the end", the Health Secretary has said, vowing to continue "slashing bloated bureaucracy".

By contrast, Wes Streeting’s action represents a revival of an older Labour tradition, shadowing the politics of the Health Minister, ‘Nye’ Bevan, who drove the foundation of the NHS in the 1940s. If a “bedpan” fell in his birthplace, Tredegar in South Wales, the sound would “reverberate around Whitehall”.